The Night Gallery
by Abraham Bishop
I’ve never really been
to a gallery like this before.
Radiant yellow-white beams bounce
off the polished floor,
the almost barren eggshell walls
adorned with little works of art
whose presence and stature
grow
the closer you get,
the more you read
the inky writing on the wall.
Here, a bevy of silvery balloons set down
in thick fabric
are like tombstones at first
and last.
There, a portrait of torture,
of human suffering created
out of a material that would normally provide
comfort.
The delicate, pink, imprisoned shapes
seem even more out of place
against this harshly soft backdrop.
Such darkness
whose reach extends
to every fragment of my soul
held against such blinding whiteness
only deepening their gloom.
The copious lights
whose harsh artificial luminescence
dissects hands, heads, shoulders
into a visual cacophony of shadow.
I’m not sure I’m feeling it.
It’s too crowded,
too loud, even in silence.
The brightness of everything is
headache inducing.
This space is haunting,
so much is happening, yet it is so incredibly
still.
Time does not exist.
The wearying world outside
continues to spin.
But here
it has stopped.
Gone is the looming workday;
gone is the tension in my shoulders;
gone is the pit in my stomach.
All I experience is here.
The faded, toughening
mass between my teeth
lets loose what little wintergreen
tang it still contains.
Something about this
artificial carcass in my maw
is at the same time alluring
and nauseating.
It’s a feeling that reminds me so much
of childhood,
of having no real desire to keep chewing
but no real desire to get rid of this
hunk of rubber
keeping my jaw occupied.
I keep gazing at the agony
bouncing off the walls.
Many of the featureless beige faces
were once families.
Were once children.
Now they are gone.
My attention is once again gripped
by reverberating thumps of feet and
a smell that exists in some space between
Lowe’s and Hobby Lobby,
industrious and expressive.
The scent of popsicle sticks.
That which I should be focusing on,
the flecks of warm color on walls that seem so
cold,
seem to join into one continuous line that wraps around this
unassuming little moment
and holds us here.